[pure-silver] Re: The End of Kodachrome

  • From: john stockdale <j.sto@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:37:19 +1000

Steve Goldstein wrote:
A sad day indeed. I recently had some 60+-year-old home movies converted to DVD. The colors on those 16mm Kodachrome films were as vibrant as if they'd been shot yesterday, and no special care had been taken in storage. Can any E6 material perform as well?

There's a post from somewhere that I saved (see the end of my rave, below). In about 1970 I found an unexposed roll of 16mm Kodachrome that my father had bought in the early 1950s (expiry date around 1956). In those days it was 10ASA (not as bad as it sounds for movie use because of the relatively slow shutter speed).

I phoned our local Kodak office (Melbourne) and asked if it would be ok. Spoke to someone who knew a lot who advised me to expose half a stop more. I did so and as processing was prepaid, took it to Kodak's shop in Melbourne. They had to send it to Hawaii for processing because the local place had upgraded to the new improved 25ASA process. It came back beautiful, and has not faded.

Here's the post about a question of keeping qualities:

<start of quote>

Had to do a little digging but here's the answer to your question regarding the longevity of Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides.
The answer comes right from the Great Yellow Father's mouth.

What Kodak Says
Estimated Time for "just-noticeable fading to occur in Kodak films stored in the dark at 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees
Celcius) and 40% relative humidity.

Kodachrome films (current process K-14)................ 90 years
Kodachrome films (previous process K-12)............... 50 years

Ektachrome films (current process E-6)................. 50 years
Ektachrome films (previous process E-4)................ 20 years
High-Speed Ektachrome films (previous process E-4)..... 20 years
Ektachrome Professional Films (previous process E-3).... 6 years

"Just-noticeable" fading is defined as a 10% loss (o.1 from an original density of 1.0) of one or more of the cyan, magenta and yellow image dyes.

It should be noted Kodak began producing E-6 Ektachrome and K-14 Kodachrome around 1977, and the previous films were phased out at that time.


<end of quote>
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